As a residents’ body, we have a mandate of Harare residents to demand transparency in the utilisation of public resources, and accountability of elected and appointed officials including the senior management of the City of Harare, and other service providers.
The HRT appreciates the fact that the City of Harare has valid contractual obligations towards senior managers, just like they have contractual obligations to the rest of their employees. The residents’ movement is aware that the City of Harare as a local service provider, and an essential service provider to the majority of the citizens, has a binding social contract with the residents- to provide essential services consistently and the residents in return have to pay for the rendered services every month.
Purchasing of these vehicles is viewed by citizens in the context of how the City of Harare delivers on the cited social contract. Residents want their refuse bins regularly collected. They want an answer to their sewerage and water woes when they relate with the council.
Presently, there is nothing to suggest that the City of Harare, led by the special interest academic Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda, has a solution to the problems affecting the residents of Harare. The Mayor has become so removed from reality that he treats councillors in the City of Harare as misfits, who he cannot professionally relate with, due mainly to their reported low levels of education. With this mentality he is flattered, or overly impressed by the underperforming Town Clerk, whose only success has been stalling the implementation of council resolutions, and still remain the Town Clerk of the Capital City, with the ‘right’ to have a US$190 000 Toyota Land Cruiser VXV8, while service delivery continues to decline.
It boggles the mind how the council can purchase luxury vehicles not directly linked to service delivery where residents have to daily contend with heaps of uncollected garbage, inconsistent water supplies of low quality, a potholed and disintegrating road network, exorbitant bills that they can hardly afford to pay, among other service delivery challenges ravaging the communities.
During the 2013 pre-budget consultations in September 2012, City Treasury officials assured residents that they would deliver 27 new refuse collection trucks by end of October 2012, but only one truck has been delivered. It only becomes clearer by the day what the priorities of the City of Harare are, and whose side the Mayor and his council are on. Mayor Masunda forgets that he is in council as a lead policymaker, leading the transformation of the Sunshine City than his unrelenting and unreasonable defence of the underperforming senior managers.
The residents have lost confidence in the Mayor and the Town Clerk, warranting the duo’s resignation.
From interviews conducted by the HRT with different councillors and other well-placed officials, there is an apparent discord between the Mayor and the majority of the elected councillors who feel he has betrayed them. On the other hand, there is a growing rift between the councillors and senior managers over implementation of council decisions and resolutions, rendering the council ineffective in providing basic services to the residents.
The behaviour of the senior council management with the full backing of the elitist Mayor Masunda is the reason residents of Harare demonstrated at Town House on Tuesday 6 November 2012 against the council’s poor prioritisation, demanding among other things the writing off of all debt accumulated from February 2009 to end of December 2010. The HRT wants the council to urgently address water issues and improve on the availability and quality of water by 30 November 2012.
While the council and residents largely depend on each other, the City of Harare has assumed a big brother mentality where suffering residents have been hit with property attachments, letters of final demands for owing the city, and by extension, for being poor, rendering dialogue pointless. But all the ongoing property attachments have not been sanctioned by the City Councillors as a policy. Informed sources have revealed to the HRT that this action was authorised by the Town Clerk, following recommendations by City Treasurer Mr Misheck Mubvumbi, demonstrating beyond doubt the collapse of the governance system at Town House. Councillors have become useful rubberstamping tools for the mayor and the senior managers who are capitalising on the desperation that is fast creeping in among most councillors who realise they have achieved very little in terms of service delivery, and there is no time to convince residents to be re-elected in forthcoming elections.
The HRT urges the Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, Dr. Ignatius Chiminya Chombo to put an end to this madness at Town House in defence of the citizens, who have become hopeless and vulnerable at the mercy of elites at Town House, supervised by an academic Mayor whose appreciation of suffering in the communities is negligible.
The council’s management and the city fathers should be reminded that real power lie with the people and they have a short time to attend to residents’ demands or they will have no financial control of residents’ funds. Residents have awakened, and intend to make a bold statement, with actions, and no more hollow threats, come the end of this November 2012. The HRT will not rest until the issues raised by residents in their petition to the council have been addressed.
The City of Harare is seriously advised to avert a dangerous situation where there is a likely possibility of them failing to settle their monthly financial obligations owing to the arrogance and mismanagement of council affairs by the Mayor and his senior managers.
Post published in: News